Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-07-28

l AASGA2ssssss MIS- ". l.. harper.
The Declaration of independence is
dear to every American heart 1t is
masterpiece of logical argument against
usurpation and tyranny. We therefore
present it in our column adapted by
Rev. F. o. Blair. of Kentuckey, to the
present alarming condition in this coun-
try.
THE NEW DECLARATION DE NDEPEND-
ENCE.
For many years the inhabitants of
this country have suffered from the cruel
acts and oppressive measures instituted
by King Alcohol, with the evident de-
sign to reduce them under an absolute
despotism, and after long and patient
endurance of fragrant wrongs, and after
having made many and fruitless efforts
to obtain redress, until it is plainly ev-
ident that nothing can be hoped from
appeals to his justice or mercy, we. the
people Of these United States, having
resolved to cast off the authority of this
| tyrant, do unite in this declaration of the
causes and reasons which constrain us
to take so important step, and of the
miseries and grievances which have
been inflicted on us by him, until his
government has become burden too
heavy to be longer borne. The history
of his course toward us in the past, is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpa-
tons, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny
over these states, and the subsection of
the people, through their depraved APP
petltes and passions, to his complete
control.
To prove this, let facts be submitted
to candid world
He has refused his assent to laws the
most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
He has caused the enactment of laws
which have opened the sluice ways of
destruction, pouring forth upon the peo-
pie of this land dreadful tide of in
Temperance, with all the attendant evils
of drunkenness, disease and death.
He has bribed in various ways, and
under various DISCUSSES, the legislators,
the judges and the juries of the country,
to prevent the enactment and the ex-
ecution of laws however needful for the
welfare of the public, which would inter-
fere with his nefarious traffic in intoxi-
eating liquors, or prevent the accumula-
ton of wealth by him self at the expense
of the comfort, the fortunes, the lives,
and the future well-being of his victims.
He has taken away our property,
earned by patient, faithful labor, and
reduced our families to beggary and
| want.
He has diverted the wealth of the
nation from its proper Office to the sup
port of the criminal, the pauper, and
the idiot, caused to become such by his
blighting influence.
He has locked up vast sums of money
from the legitimate uses of trade and
commerce in the jails, the penitentiaries
and the asylums, these having been
made necessary by the vices and crimes
he has stimulated into activity among
the people.
He has extorted many millions from
the labors of the nation, to be expended
in maintaining the police forces, the
courts of justice, and all the machinery
of government, devoted largely to vain
effort to remedy the evils he himself has
inflicted upon society.
He has transformed the fruits of the
earth, given for the substance of man
and beast, into death-dealing poison
which changes men into demons.
He has diverted the labors of thous-
ands from productive occupations, to
the preparation and distribution of the
fiery flood which dessolate our land.
He has smitten the people with in
sanity and idiocy, and filled our asYlums
with maniacs'and driveling idiots, as well
as the prisons and our institutions for the
feebleminded with criminals.
He has enticed our boys from their
homes, and sent them forth as tramps
and vagabonds in the land. and instead
of good citizens, they have become the
dangerous class of society.
He has won our young men from
lives of sobriety, industry and frugality,
to course Of drunkenness, Incidence and
wastfulness.
He has drawn away our young
women from the paths of virtue to dens
of infamy, and frightful depths of deg
radiation.
He is responsible, directly or Indirect
ly, for three-fourths of all the crimes
committed, and four-fifths of all the
murders done.
He has dragged down the gifted and
noble of all classes from positions of
honor, truth and usefulness, and, with
ruined regulations and names disgraced,
has consigned them to a drunkard's |
grave and a drunkards doom.
He has blighted the sunny. happy |
years of childhood, and caused the little
ones to pass their lives in squalor,
misery and want; and homes that might
have been the abodes of perennial hap
piness, have been turned into habitations
of internal cruelty.
He has prostituted the public press to
his purposes and uses, so that, too often,
instead of nobly speaking out for justice
and right, and the good of the people at
large, it basely yields to his demands to
be sustained in his efforts to crush and
ruin our race.
He has infatuated very many of the
office seekers and Office holders with the
belief that it is fare more important to
promote his interests than to labor for
the welfare of the people at large.
He has changed, in many places, the
holy Sabbath, with its hours of peaceful
quiet, a day devoted to religious obser-